Does Language Matter When Advertising to Africa’s Multilingual Audience? An ELM Study of Audience Language Preference and Responses

Abstract

Choosing the most effective language is critical when advertising to multilingual audiences as the success of any advertising campaign depends on whether the audience “gets” the message. This paper argues that in Africa, “getting the message” is partly dependent on language given that indigenous languages, colonial legacy languages, and blends between them compete for audience attention. Using Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) arguments, the study examines this possibility among 1000 multilingual audience members in five cosmopolitan cities in Ghana. Findings show that advertisements are not consumed in a language vacuum and that language blends are the most appealing to the multilingual audience. The study also finds that attention to, and belief in advertisements are partly shaped by language preference. Besides these empirical contributions, the study positions the ELM as a viable theoretical lens for analyzing the implications of advertising language. Its use of an African sample to test the ELM’s assumptions also introduces novel evidence to the theory’s body of scholarship. Recommendations are made on how advertising practitioners and brand communicators may take advantage of language as an important segmentation criterion in advertising strategy.